Retail reverse: Sean Summers ready to pass Pick n Pay ball to successor Spencer Sonn

It has been a neat three years since the Ackerman family welcomed veteran retail executive and former Pick n Pay CEO (circa 1999) Sean Summers back as company chief in 2023.

“When I returned three years ago, around every braai on a weekend the whole debate was ‘is Pick n Pay going to make it,’ ” a characteristically upbeat Summers told the media on a post-interim results conference call.

“Everybody is so focused on the profit and getting back into profitability and quite rightly so, but that is an outcome of actions that need to be taken initially... You don’t return to profit and then start doing all of the good stuff after that; the profit flows from that.”

It is strange that he returned to deliver the first loss in company history and now, as his successor Spencer Sonn has already been named to take over at the full-year results, Summers has to chart a course for the future.

“Somebody has to take over as chief executive officer looking after the bigger, broader entity of the group as such... I need to ensure that Dallas [Langman] and his management team are absolutely focused on the day-to-day turnaround of the core Pick n Pay business... There’s nothing in and of itself specifically that Spencer needs to come in to do to take the company in a different direction at all... The track and the course that Pick n Pay is on is clear and understood... Now it’s about consistent execution.”

At that point, when asked why Pick n Pay is prioritising store revamps over new store openings while competitors expand aggressively, Summers cited market realities and past competitor strategies. “The pace at which developments are currently taking place in the country has definitely dropped off,” he explained.

“This frantic store opening onslaught that we’ve endured in the last two years from our opposition all goes back to decisions that were made most probably four and five years ago... to really almost sort of carpet bomb the marketplace... Despite that and us having less stores, we’ve managed to show the like-for-likes that we have.”

Not embracing the dark side

One of the major trends in the aggressive expansion of PnP’s competitors is the growth of dark stores that serve only as retail warehouses of stock for the e-commerce (read: home delivery) orders.

Summers’ strategy has been to close 19 stores to date in the financial year; actually, he told Daily Maverick that Pick n Pay’s existing physical footprint eliminates the need for standalone dark stores.

“We have so many stores... across the length and breadth of the country where we can reconfigure space and have available space at the back of the store to perform the so-called dark store fulfilment function.”

He also cautioned against over-capitalising digital operations with standard retail overheads:

“It makes no sense to be incurring full retail rentals and capital deployed for goods that don’t need to be put into a fancy shop with great capex and terrazzo floor tiles and beautiful bulkheads around them. So that’s going to be an evolution that’s going to take place over time.”

It’s difficult to separate out the asap! app effect on specifically in-store traffic, but interim results show that omnichannel turnover grew 35.4% year on year, and Summers noted that online delivery continues to see strong double-digit momentum.

Following the launch of standalone Pick n Pay Clothing within the asap! app in March 2026, combined online sales (app + website) surged 137% year-on-year, delivering well ahead of budget. The elasticity of that delivery market will also be tested now with Smart Shopper Pro, the paid loyalty subscription tier (R99/month) offering unlimited free asap! deliveries, designed to drive order frequency and retention.

To improve operational efficiency without increasing overheads, Pick n Pay is introducing hybrid picking and assortment planning tools across stores in H2 FY27.

And that is supported by a staffing strategy that, rather than adding separate picking staff (the people who execute the online order and do the shopping), has instead restructured its store labour model in agreement with Saccawu to allow flexible shift scheduling – ensuring existing store teams can be deployed when and where customer demand (both in-store and online) peaks.

Wait, wasn’t there a section 189 process?

Summers couldn’t speak too much about that, but PnP concluded a flexible store labour agreement with employee representatives, enabling optimised shift scheduling over peak weekend trading without heavy reliance on costly variable-time or casual labour. This allowed the formal withdrawal of the Section 189A retrenchment consultation process.

The real game changer

That leaves only one more question around decisions made in the second season of Sean Summers as Pick n Pay CEO: the small matter of a multiyear Springboks sponsorship.

He, of course, highlighted the six-year partnership as a strategic decision to align Pick n Pay with a national unifying symbol, significantly boosting internal employee pride during the turnaround.

The deal, again, according to Summers’ account, shifted public perception away from brand collapse:

“By just having the courage to take that decision to do the Springbok deal... proved, with the benefit of hindsight, to be the right one.”

The scope, of course, extends beyond the national men’s team to include school rugby and women’s rugby initiatives, and the retailer has also secured exclusive rights for accessible, lower-priced Springbok merchandise. Summers reported that sales volumes for this merchandise have been “absolutely phenomenal”.

In-store promotions, including collector albums and collectable boxes, have driven significant footfall and repeat customer visits, and the broadcast placement provides international brand visibility across South African diaspora communities worldwide – so definitely not an insignificant part of the turnaround.

“Three years ago we were sitting in a very, very different situation. You know,” Summers reflected as he prepares to hand over the reins, “we had R11- [or] R12-billion of debt on the balance sheet... Boxer is the thing that has allowed us to get the strength back into the family again... As our chairman and founder Raymond Ackerman always said, nobody ever went bankrupt with cash in the bank.”

Despite headline balance sheet cash, core Pick n Pay supermarkets continue to operate at a R516-million trading loss, meaning organic cash generation is not yet self-sustaining without Boxer dividends and those cost reductions which Summers spun as a retail property strategy – occupancy cost is down 2.6% on the back of rental renegotiations and lower insurance costs.

But the trading loss is now a Sonn problem as Summers heads for the exit. DM